'Hockey for my Life', by Jerry Gibbons, GMU Hockey; Goons Hockey; USAHockey
I came to hockey late. Sure, I remember watching the Rangers playing the Canadiens on TV in the early '60s, and my Dad told us that the team we root for is the Rangers because they were closest to our home, in Philadelphia. Then came expansion, and the Broad Street Bullies captured the sports fans of Philadelphia. I was in awe of the hustle of Bobby Clarke, the quickness of Bernie Parent, the toughness of Ed Van Impe. But my favorite player by far was Rick MacLeish. He was the smoothest strongest skating player I ever saw, with a powerful wrist shot. He scored the Stanley Cup winning goal tipping in a Moose Dupont wrist shot to give Philadelphia a championship. Throughout my college days I dreamed of joining the LaSalle College hockey team, a club team where you paid to play, but I could not afford the team and uniform fees, since I was already paying the tuition and book bills myself, working 3 jobs—cue the violins. But I did get some hockey fixes just by playing pick-up and informal skate and shoot sessions. In my junior year at College, I had my 2 front teeth broken by an ill-placed stick. Too old to be on my parents' dental plan, I spent the rest of my College days looking like a hockey player, resigned to the fact that I would not have money for dental repair until I got out of College and started making my own money. At that point, I felt that I had too much invested in the sport to quit.
I came to Washington in 1980 while a new hockey league, the National Novice Hockey League was being formed. I wanted to join a team but the administrators told me I was too good for their league, which at that time only had novice teams. One of my friends played on a novice teams, the Comets and he said that they needed a coach. Everything I know about coaching hockey I learned by watching Fred Shero run the Flyers. A super talented first line like Clarke, Barber and Leach; a second line with a superstar and 2 lunch pail guys, like MacLeish, Dornhoefer and Lonsberry, and a third line of checkers, like Schultz, Saleski and Kindrachuk. Once I got to know the players, I saw who should be playing where. I explained what each of the players' expectations and roles would be, and we went on from there. We won the championship, but the next year I was a player again. The administrators said I could play on a second year team that was moving up, and I couldn't play for the team I just coached; having just won the championship, they were too good. Though I led the team in points and goals and assists, I could see early that we could not compete with the veteran teams. I decided to lead by example, passing whenever I could, and we finished the season 0-20-0. Five years later, we, The Maryland Crabs, won the championship.
To support my hockey playing and Capitals' season tickets, I started officiating, all levels, from 6 year old mites to high schools, college games and even Washington Capitals preseason camp scrimmages. To date, I have worked more than 6,500 games since 1986. Many of the patterns I analyzed while officiating, I thought I could integrate into coaching.
I came back to coaching when my kids started played house league hockey. Then came High School hockey. I gave birth to the Fairfax High School Rebel Pride Hockey Club, and ran that program for 4 years until my youngest child graduated. Our first year we went 2-7-1 getting mercy-ruled in our first 3 games. But the kids had fun and I pledged to them all that every player would play a regular shift. They may not play power play or penalty kill, but they would play to get tired, make a difference, and come away with memories of each game from the ice, not the bench. The secret is that the pledge is easy to keep—because it is the best way to run a hockey bench. For every shift that my top 2 lines are resting, it allows them later to jump on the ice fresh, which is what a sprinting sport like hockey requires for each game, and more importantly, for a long season.
“Dad, George Mason University is firing their coach and they want to speak to you about the job, there's no salary or anything”, said my son, Erik. “Would you do it?” This is what a hockey lifer like me does for his kids. Of course I took the job, reluctantly, and GMU went from 0-19-0 last year under a coach who alienated most of his players to 8-6-1 this year, with a team of players who want to play and who know what their roles and expectations are. And I'm still officiating and still playing, and drawing a federal pension too. I guess you could say that this lifer has made it.
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